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1655-5 African American/Blacks r .. MIAMI BEACH \\\3°\ (j\ ` Boycott-ending hotel is set for sale ■A white-owned company is poised to buy what was million and pay back city sub- the nation's first black-owned convention hotel,which sidies requiring black owner- was created in Miami Beach to end a racial controversy. ship. Industry experts said the price would be the high- BY DOUGLAS HANKS III contract to sell it to a white- est ever paid for a Miami AND NICOLE WHITE owned hotel development Beach hotel. dhanks(aherald.com company,according to docu- The tourism boycott The owner of the Royal ments obtained by The Her- began after local leaders Palm Crowne Plaza Resort, ald. snubbed South African Presi- the key concession that The deal,which could face dent Nelson Mandela during ended a three-year black significant hurdles, calls for his visit here in 1990 because tourist boycott of Miami- R. Donahue Peebles to sell Dade County, has signed a the oceanfront resort for$128 •TURN TO HOTEL,5A L II IIIIIIIIIII I11I11,11311=II III II ` : y J. < b • MIAMI BEACH Boycott-ending hotel set for sale •HOTEL,FROM 1A lIN(OI N RD. f of his support for Fidel Cas- i tro.Eager to end the boycott, Miami Miami Beach in 1993 invited Beach Royal Palm black developers to bid on 16ST. Crowne building a large,convention- Plaza Resort headquarters hotel on city- owned oceanfront. Peebles, then a Washington-based 15 St. 3 f developer, won the contest and spent a reported$84 mil- lion building the 417-room Royal Palm,which opened ins 2002. 14 ST. �o o iz)-7 i Now Peebles is poised to Q sell the resort to The Falor Co., a Chicago-based com- �YNNOCCHIUzzO/NERALDSTAFF pany that has bought a num- ber of South Florida hotels in to pay off Miami Beach,lend- • recent years. The Royal ers and Clark. Palm's lease with Miami But at least one major Beach allows Peebles to pay roadblock seems to remain $10 million for the land and before Peebles could sell the lift most restrictions on the Royal Palm to Falor. He first property, including the must close a deal with the city minority ownership require- to let hini convert a portion of ments,city officials said. the Royal Palm rooms to con- dominium units—an element HIGH-PROFILE VENTURE crucial for Falor, which spe- The hotel's sale would cializes in such conversions. mark the end of a high-profile Peebles and city commis- venture touted as giving sioners had reached an agree- blacks more of a stake in the ment to convert 160 rooms to region's $17 billion tourism condo-hotel units as part of a industry. The city lease settlement over$16 million in required that at least 25 per- construction overruns that cent of the Royal Palm's exec- Peebles partly blamed on utives be black,and the hotel structural problems with the became a magnet for Magic city-owned hotel site. Johnson,Will Smith and other But Peebles'disputes with black celebrities.In 2003 the his lenders and Clark have NAACP picked Miami Beach delayed the final paperwork for its national convention. on that settlement. And City The Royal Palm project Manager Jorge Gonzalez also raised Peebles'profile as raised the possibility Monday a star African-American that Miami Beach might scut- entrepreneur; Black Enter- tle the agreement if it wanted prise magazine named his to oppose the sale to Falor. Coral Gables firm, Peebles "Perhaps we would say, Atlantic Development, its 'Wait a minute — this Company of the Year in May. arrangement was made exclu- "Selling an asset is a part of sively to settle a dispute with the ordinary course in the [Peebles],' " Gonzalez said. development business,"Pee- "That situation has now bles said in a statement Mon- morphed into a different situ- day night. "In the spirit of ation." equal economic opportunity I The wave of condo conver- should have the same rights sions in Beach hotels has led and opportunities and be to worries that major conven- judged as any other business tions might have difficulty person; the right to make a booking large blocks of profit from my investment, rooms. dedication and hard work." While hotel-condo rooms H.T.Smith,a Miami lawyer are generally put back into a and chief architect of the hotel's rental pool, owners tourism boycott,praised Pee- usually have the right to stay bles Monday night and in them themselves. endorsed the property deal. "The Royal Palm was a SENSITIVE ISSUE symbol of what could be The issue is particularly achieved with the collective sensitive with the Loews perseverance of the black Miami Beach and the Royal community," Smith said. "I Palm—two hotel projects the never expected any business Beach subsidized in part to and certainly not any hotel serve as convention-head- business to remain perma- quarter hotels. nently in the hands of the In two interviews Monday original owner. I'm very night, company head Robert proud of the fact that Don Falor seemed to tread on that stepped forward and broke a prickly ground. While he said barrier." he only wanted to convert Peebles has faced increas- about 150 Royal Palm rooms ing pressure to either find a at first,he did not consider his new lender for the hotel or company bound by that sell it.The contractor on the agreement. project, Clark Construction, Asked if he was planning to won a $12 million judgment convert the entire hotel into a against a Peebles company in hotel-condo property, Falor May, and original lender replied:"I am." Union Planters Bank recently After speaking with Pee- sold the hotel's $54 million bles,Falor retracted that com- mortgage to a New York corn- ment, saying that to convert pany that is now trying to more than 160 rooms "we foreclose on the property. would need permission from Peebles dismissed the the city." problems, always citing the Falor said he is negotiating hotel's value on the real estate with Hard Rock Cafe to oper- market. He said he has had ate the hotel and the condo- multiple offers for the hotel hotel units'prices would start —most at prices high enough at about $450,000.